My 1st Post

[Janey]

Hello everyone,

Ive been looking at your posts on and off for a few months now and have finally managed to pluck up the courage and join your forum.

I live in the UK and my dad was dx with rehabt last year. My lovely dad contracted an infection and after hospital treatment he is now free from the infection and back home with my mum. She cares for him better than anyone but the problem we have is that he just wont eat anything. The weight is falling off him and he is fading before our eyes. Mum could not do any more to help and encourage my dad to eat. We are all now at a loss as what to do. Do any of you have experience of this? Any advice would be much appreciated. I have an extremely close family and my parents mean the world to me. I just feel so empty and dont know how to help my dad or my mum get through this.

[eve]

my dad took a prescription drug call megastrol to help boost his appetite – it worked if he took it religiously, which was not always the case

my dad lost a lot of weight during the course of his illness

eve

[Russ P.]

Janey,
You didn’t mention your Dad’s diagnosis or treatment. My experience is that nausea is the biggest detriment to appetite and yet eating may help the nausea. Prednisone could help boost the appetite but I can’t recommend that without knowing his diagnosis and medical history.
God bless you.

[riley]

Hi Janey,

At times throughout his illness, my father took the same medicine that Eve mentioned. The brand name was Megace. Here’s a link to the website for it: http://www.megacees.com/

We also found that it had to be taken religiously for it to work, and it would take about three days for it to kick in. If my father was persistent with it, it did work wonders for him. We found that once his appetite kicked back in, he could stop taking the medicine.

Nicole

[patti]

Janey,

You might try making high calorie, nutrient dense smoothies that he could drink/eat with a straw or a spoon (if you make them thick enough). You could try using an organic, low sugar, full fatted ice cream, frozen berries, little organic whole milk, banana, and two or three scoops of whey protein. Blend for just a second in a blender. You can make it as thick or thin as you like. Sometimes sucking something thru a straw makes it easier for folks to eat. You can also use organic full fatted yogurt instead of ice cream. The whey protein will help prevent muscle wasting, but it’s not likely he’d drink it plain so you’d need to mix it with something like the smoothie.

My MIL’s appetite has diminished greatly just from being so tired from the anemia. If you’re dad is overtired because of that you just have to work to make sure what he eats is full of calories and nutrients and not empty calories (jello, etc).

HTH

patti

[josey]

Marinol is also used to increse the appetite and help nausea. You might want to look into that, also Ensure, if you can tolerate the taste, has a lot of calories in it to add weight on. Joanne

[Author]

Posts